 You know that I've been I've grown up as a community organizer and I'm taught to fear rooms like this A bunch of people sitting around who knows what you're typing Who knows what you're saying about the work we're doing. No, I'm just kidding. It's good to be here Gosh, I guess I was here about six years ago. I went to the Divinity School And I don't know that I've been back maybe once Since then and I was talking to Nico earlier You know, you'll have to forgive me. I'm still in recovery mode after the campaign I've actually haven't really taken a break yet. I've been in Chicago working on our post-election Task Force wrap up making sure we keep all the data and do a bunch of analysis of what has happened on the campaign So I haven't taken a break yet. I have not gone to the beach yet So if I just start mumbling incoherently, please forgive me. It's been a long Long two years. I want to start with them. It's Colin right not it's Colin, right? I love what he said about the jazz and and the classical music Because that's a lot what I want to talk about sort of building on what Marshall said is this sort of independent interdependence between the technology The new media and the field organizing that's been going on and I believe that you know where we are today when we When we get into campaigns or we get into social movements or or advocacy organizing that doesn't have that interdependence We leave a lot on the table on both sides and it's this balance that I think we began to take from infancy to adolescence You know from the 04 cycle to this cycle, but have not even come close To the power that we have to connect The technology with the real organizing and some of the conditions that Marshall talked about I also just want to say and then I'm going to tell some stories. I also Just want to say that the Technology in my mind and this also hopefully will provoke some some thought is in many ways The net or as Marshall talks about the hammer But not necessarily the engine and that when we go in and set up a strategy or come up with How we're going to run a campaign and how we're going to get the votes We need when we take the technology and try to fit the strategy into that technology I think we've also done a disservice to the work that we're trying to do when we've come up with a Strategy and a program and then said what resources do we have? And in order to do this and thought about that as we're coming up with a strategy I think we've been more successful. So I'm going to talk a little bit about that in four parts Four different states that I was in in the campaign and some of the technology that I believe helped us Get the votes that we needed to and that then show the interdependence between the two and also talks about that last point about really having The strategy first and then figuring out what technology we had to make it even better So about about two years ago a little under two years ago. It's April 11th 2007 and I find myself the first day I find myself in South Carolina In a state that you know may not be the most tech savvy state in the nation May not have as many internet users as California Per capita And I find myself there on the 11th and there's an event with Obama on the 13th two days from then and the night before we're putting Together we're putting together the tickets that we're gonna use for people to get into the event And you know we put on there the line about you know We want your email address and we're gonna try to capture that from people that come there but as we started look we were in Florence, South Carolina, which is even Maybe less connected to the online world than other parts of South Carolina. It's it's area called the PD Somebody had the great idea of saying well, you know Not as many people have the internet out there But you should we should definitely add a line for their cell phones and put a little box It says you know that they'd be willing to get text from the campaign. It's something they've started in Chicago We should really start to do this So we put it on there and a lot of people put their information on there and tell us that they want to get text from the campaign and we continue to do this through throughout the campaign in South Carolina as Very simple very small thing You know that we have the Oprah rally in December 30,000 people come I stand up on stage terrified in front of all these folks and asked them, you know to text in You know their information and we start building a mechanism to communicate with People throughout the state that was an alternative to just sort of the main technology that a lot of people think of I think it's it was sort of under Reported and under talked about but we had the ability through this technology We were building as Marshall talked about this team structure Throughout the state where people were really taking ownership over what they were doing But we had the ability to to text out those team members information About the campaign that we wouldn't text out to other folks and the ability to get volunteers With what I'm very interested is how to use this technology to move people So as volunteers are out canvassing on a Saturday if you get we would get them all the text in and we would get them to Text back in pictures and send those back out to folks As a way to move them as a way to motivate them as a way to connect them to what was happening throughout the state Very small story, but I'm gonna just you know use that and then the second thing from South Carolina And I'll come back to serve how all these stories tie together is that early on we started a house meeting program that was really sort of the foundation of building the leaders that we needed that we thought we needed in order to win and Sam Graham Felsen and some of the folks from Chicago came down and shot video about the Strategy and we had been talking about it and we had been you know I put it on paper and everybody signed up on the field plan, but no one really knew what we were doing In reality, right? I mean people kind of knew there was a little bit different and and as Steve feel the brand We'll tell you he was a little bit concerned, but thought we'll worry about that later But it didn't sound like sort of the traditional Doors and phones program that that needed to be done in order to identify the voters we needed But they trusted us enough to do this But what the video did and I'll talk about this more when I get to the Ohio part of the story was really Tell the story it was it was the power of that video But more importantly than putting it online and putting it into context As a way that people would go sign up to do their own meeting which would give us leads for our organizers But more importantly as a way to tell the story to the rest of the campaign internally and to the larger Community about what we were doing that was different and had a profound impact, and I'm going to talk more about video In a second so fast forward We know we're fortunate enough to squeak by with a 29-point win down there all because of our text message program And Fast-forward to Marilyn That is definitely not on the record. I think I'm being videotaped so everything to say is on the record No, that is also a very that is also a joke But you know definitely helped it was though the the first you know the at 731 p.m All of those volunteers knew that we had won the election and how do they find out they found out through our text message program So at least we were able to communicate information to them Through that so the second fast-forward through to Maryland. I get to Maryland. There's 14 days to run an election There's an awesome group that had started there and this should not be Sort of minimize who had organized themselves using a lot of the tools that the folks in Chicago had built And Chris I see has come in around, you know my bulk communities and had organized themselves on the ground as well But we still get there and there's 14 days and we sort of have this ambitious goal of actually impacting the election in some way in 14 days So we set up 14 offices quickly throughout the state. We have about a dozen organizers And I get there on Tuesday and on Saturday. We really only have two weekends of GO TV canvassing. So we decide we're gonna See what happens. It seems to be a little bit more of a connected state So we set up all of these canvases across the state and we just shoot it out through the my bow groups and through emails and 1200 folks sign up to volunteer that Saturday in 24 hours in Montgomery County alone And so we that was the first time I realized that I'm in a different environment Then I had been in for the last nine months in terms of the the the power of the internet and the connection that people had was a lot more Real there, but also people had not been involved in Democratic Presidential politics it never mattered there before so people were were more excited But simply by sending that out and it's sort of a simple thing. We were able to sort of capture through the net The people that wanted to get involved bring them in and then get them into training Around their GO TV roles and build in 14 days an infrastructure that was able to on election day Talk to every single targeted voter go to their door three times And that was only possible through the connection of the training that happened once we brought people in and obviously the My bow groups and other things to get people there in the first place. All right, then then I travel two hours north and go from a 25 point victory to a 27 point deficit when we get there and I realized about you the world This country is very different when you travel Different places here. I end up in Pennsylvania And we have a little bit longer time eight weeks No one's paying attention because Ohio and Texas are going on and everybody thinks if we win one of those it doesn't matter So good luck. Here's 12 people. Here's a very large state. Here's a little bit of money Here's a Jeremiah Wright scandal and other things have fun. Oh, and by the way, you're down 27 points no one in the political infrastructure is supporting you and Etc. Etc. But We're gonna build teams again. So we have eight weeks. We figure we have the ability to really build an infrastructure That that has the ability to to change, you know the the election. So This is sort of where technology I think is probably one of the best examples that I have We are we have no offices We're getting them set up and as you know if you've been out on the trail It takes a while to get telephones in these offices But there's some online tools that have been developed that enabled us to take this team structure that we had built and We called it the PA teams tool Which was an online calling tool that you could go into and say I live in this precinct and it would connect you with People in the group and give you whatever lists the organizer or we would decide we were going to be Targeting in that area it turns out that tool ended up becoming basically neighbor-to-neighbor and some of the other tools that That were used on the campaign in the general election But it was that it was the the classics and the jazz coming together It was this fantastic tool that allowed you to do tons of really interesting things about competing amongst yourselves about Seeing what was being done about hitting goals and seeing them there without having the infrastructure of an office But having the ability for an organizer to go in and see what was happening and make And and and sort of connect those folks together and make sure that there was organizing happening And it wasn't just like oh, you know go online and make five calls It was a real accountable Structure that people felt like they were a part of a community like they do In in the my bowl groups and other things and so that was I think one of the times where the classics and jazz came Together the best and then the last story I'll tell is Ohio where I was in the general Where we spent a lot of time in Chicago after the primary looking at what worked best And spent some time with the new media folks Talking about some of the the technology and neighbor neighbor and other things were born for the general election There were two things I think in Ohio that sort of them were the classics in the jazz coming together I Want one again was video? And we had we were lucky. We had two new media guys who are some of the best Guys have ever worked with who also happened to have one both of them a bunch of film awards for independent films A day in shot and we I didn't know either of them had won these awards I just knew that they were Good new media folks who I'd met along the way one had been a volunteer in California ended up as a volunteer in Pennsylvania And just did great work with what we had given him to do But we started they started we started to shoot all sorts of video And it goes back to what I said about what happened in South Carolina It was one of the most important things that we did in a weird way because It told the story about what we were doing. It brought people together We shoot video about our voter red strides. We would shoot video about, you know, some of our house meetings We shot a video called come to Ohio for people to come from out of state That was just very very powerful very moving And I think a lot of that what we were doing is just tell the story And we were doing it through video was very powerful But we always connected it to an action that someone could take so when the video was up there as you see on all these websites There was an action to be taken specific Action around what the what the story we were telling and that was I think like just a huge Example of the power of sort of this technology And getting people into action and getting them mobilized and then the last thing that was we we nationally set up a Very very smart website called vote build our vote for change calm Which allowed people to go in you know We want a big part of our strategy that we had developed was around voter registration And this site Allow people to go in and download voter edge forms And then you know turn them in and you know 700,000 plus folks across the country You know downloaded this form and what but what it allowed us to do is as every individual downloaded the form an organizer Would get that information and know that they had somebody to follow up with And we originally thought well, this is going to be a fantastic way to sort of start You know to get more People registered and follow up with them it ended up being one of the biggest generators of volunteers We had on the campaign because these were a lot of young people a lot of people that were really psyched they've sought it out themselves And we were able to capture the information follow up them quickly and get them engaged on the ground And you know that happens a ton when people just come up and sign up and other things But this was just a very specific thing They felt very much connected to the campaign because we were calling to make sure they did this and a lot of people Were like, you know what it's sitting on my counter right now I'm gonna go do it right now and you know what I'll just come down to the office And and get involved in the campaign so those are our four stories I think of you know very simple and we want to get into conversation Of how we use technology to motivate folks and to get them into action Which is something that I'm really interested in is is the merger between the two They were almost all designed with field people and new media folks sitting together Oftentimes in campaigns. There's this I think people are still trying to figure out right oh for it was like what's new media? 2008 it's like new media works, but like Is it communications is it field is it some you know, is it its own thing and if it is its own department You know, who do they report to who do they talk to how does it work? And you know a lot of these things that I'm talking about we're actually you know where we sat together And and had this strategy and knew we were trying to figure out where to go And we're trying to figure out how to make organizing and online organizing work together So I'll leave it there with those four stories and then I think now we're gonna open it up for a real conversation